Thursday, March 5, 2009

I've been gone but here's pretty much what I do everyday

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

Yeah that's what I mean.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

and we are BACK!

Whew. Finally got my inbox back down to nothing tonight. It was TOUGH. I've been wrangling with it for at least 2 weeks now and I was so surprised when I hit send and archive and was presented with "you have no new mail"! I'm going to continue to keep up with it to the best of my ability. I have been managing my time better at work and at home so maybe we're finally getting into a groove.
In other news I have NOT BEEN ABLE TO SHAKE THIS COLD. ergh. It's bugging me. I went to bed last night at 7:30 right after we put my daughter to bed. But I did not sleep super well. It took me forever to go to sleep and then in the early morning I woke up and did not ever go completely back to sleep. If I could breathe I'm sure all this stuff would be much easier. :)

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Saturday, January 24, 2009

In defense of my vice: coca cola

Coca Cola is my vice. I started at an early age. So early I can't remember when I had my first sip. I gave it up for Lent one year and it was harder than when I quit biting my cuticles. I figure it may hop me up on caffeine and sugar but I could be drinking a martini everyday and this might be slightly better than that. I might quit if somehow it was actually killing me. Sadly you should notice that I said "might".

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When I realized I was a grown-up

The first time I took my cat to the vet I knew I was an "adult". She had only me to count on and I knew if I didn't take good care of her I would feel horrible.

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Friday, January 23, 2009

Why my hip-hop posse would include My Bad Ass friend Caro

My Bad Ass friend Caro
She's an awesome person to have in your corner. 1 part great friend, 1 part ass kicking gotcha back girl.


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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

what an honor

It was wonderful to watch the inauguration today and listen to President Obama's words and know that we the people can do so much.
Blessings to the people in our government to be able to go forward and work hard. Keep working everyone. The hard work is yet to come and we can do it. Yes we can.

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

definitely caught the cold

Chills? check Slight fever? check Body feels like someone ran over me with a truck? check
Got the mail back down to 2 in the mailbox today. I'm heading to bed with those left in. They are both things that have to be followed up on and I haven't found a good way to put them somewhere else that I can see them so I remember to follow up. Does that make sense? If not blame the cold. Also the 2 things are ongoing/future things I need to do so it makes sense not to archive them yet. Right? Or just a lame attempt at rationalization?
Gah. We are moving forward on the goals and that's all I can ask for now. In bed with a hot water bottle is where I'll be for the next 24 hours.

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Friday, January 16, 2009

not doing so hot on the mail

Well it's been an interesting week and here's what I learned: 1) I forgot how hard it is to go to work in the morning 2)if you deal with your mail all day it is easier to keep the inbox clear each night.
Now I have not cleared the box out this week, except for Wednesday night. I've kept it to 10 or under for the rest of the nights but frankly once I got ready to go to bed the willingness to stay up even for those few extra minutes was nil. Having to get up and go in to the office every day has been killing my efficiency.
I know, I know, I hear you saying "boo hoo. At least you HAVE a job." and yes that's true. I have been better at managing my time at the office this week so I think next week will be easier. It was only my first week so we'll see how it goes.
Ugh now I am tired AND sick. I think I have caught my kids cold. Thank goodness it's cold outside and I don't have anything to do all weekend. Except teach one class but that will be fun! :) Yay for Mondays off!

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Thursday, January 8, 2009

getting better!

Much better yesterday and today. I'm heading off to a new job tomorrow and I'm excited. It should be fun! I haven't had an office job since before my daughter was born. I remember the first time I had an office. I am such a sucker for office supplies and I loved decorating it. Sadly my old job was insane so the office, while nice, was no match for the evils of working there. This job will be so nice since I can come in and work and then just go home! No worrying or taking the work home with me.

The email situation is still going well. I am planning to go through my archives to clean out more old mail. I want to get my labels cleaned up since I have mail from 2001 in there. I'm using a program called Gmail Backup to make a file of old mail and then I'll be deleting most of it from the server. I'm currently using 1631 MB (22%) of your 7282 MB allotted. I want to get that down to the mail I might actually want to search and keep on the server. I'll report on the Gmail Backup program and how it works for my mail.

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Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Anxiety is not your friend

...or my friend either for that matter. I finally realized today that I was in the throes of a pretty massive anxiety attack. I know it seems like I should recognize it by now but sometimes it's really hard to separate all the noise in my head to see the component parts. Oddly once I know that I'm having an anxiety attack it's much easier to get over it. When I file all the pieces in the right spots I can just ride it out and know it's my brain chemistry screwing with me. So tonight I'm heading off to bed early and I will hopefully be better tomorrow. :)

The inbox is remaining empty and it's pretty easy (so far) to keep up the maintenance. I think the key is to go ahead and clean everything out and then try to keep it that way. Again, we're only a few days in but I'm still feeling pretty good. About the email anyway. ;)

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Monday, January 5, 2009

trying to get back in the swing of things...

Gah. The kids finally, no FINALLY going back to school tomorrow. I know it's a cliche but I am so glad to get back into a routine. I'm trying to get thing a little more organized around here. Getting my yarn stash together, putting together stuff to go out in packages, getting miss thing ready to go back to school. It's all a job. I'm heading to bed feeling a bit more put together but today I'm damn tired. I think it's this horrible weather. Too much heat, too much rain, to much blegh. Maybe tomorrow will be less gray.

*still no mail!

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Sunday, January 4, 2009

Got my new calendar and I'm working on the future

hee. I like titling these things. It's so easy to say something insanely cheesy. And no I didn't mean to rhyme. :) See what I mean!? I have done my email sweep for the night and I am feeling good.

I am continuing a little thing I started last year but I'm being a little more vigilant now. Someone was telling me about the "2 minute" rule. I think they got it from Lifehacker and the basic thing is if it takes less than 2 minutes, just do it now. So whenever I need to move something or throw something out or whatever, if it takes less than 2 minutes I just do it right THEN. It seems like such a little thing but you would be amazed at what you can do in 2 minutes. Load or unload the washer/dryer. Clean off the kitchen counter. Wipe down the bathroom. Straighten up the living room.

If you, like me, find clutter CRAZY MAKING then you should try this. It really does make a difference in your day to day life. Making other people follow it is REALLY DIFFICULT, just like "making" people do anything. But it is worth your while to at least throw it out there for people, to make them think about all the things you do in a day that if you just did them right NOW it would make your life easier. Really! Try it today!!

Or just pat your type A friend/spouse/crazy next door neighbor on the head and tell them you'll think about it. :)

*still no mail here!

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Saturday, January 3, 2009

Day 2 - still no mail!

This is a fun project though I'm going to have to keep an eye on how anxious I get if I can't get an email out of the box fast enough! My strategy is pretty easy: Label, Respond, Archive. I use Gmail (as you can see from my original post) and it has been a great way for me to keep things organized.
I was never a big inbox hoarder in the first place but I always had between 20 and 30 items hanging around at any given time. I know to most people who have 100s if not thousands of items that may not seem like much but it was an annoyance to me and a source of stress the longer the items were not dealt with. Once you start letting things pile up in your inbox you can lose things so easily. It's hard enough for me to get through each day without a "to do" list and forgetting a commitment because my inbox got so full I couldn't see the item is just one more hassle I got tired of dealing with.
I am, by nature, a procrastinator and this is a great training exercise in the "just do it" school. I hope to see it carry over into other aspects of my life this year. I spend a lot of time planning to do things and wondering why they didn't ever happen. This year I hope that my inbox is a jump start to some other aspects of my life that need to have their own victory. :)

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Friday, January 2, 2009

Inbox victory!!


On January 1st I made the amazing happen, I had no email in my Inbox!! I took the screencap and sent it around to my pals and one of them was amazed and said if I could do that all year she'd sign up for lessons. :) Well I laughed and then thought to myself, hey maybe that's a good goal! So my plan is before I go to bed every night all mail must be dealt with. Replied, archived, labeled, etc...so that every night all I see is "No mail here!" I can't wait to see if I can do it! We are on day 2 and so far so good! I'll be posting my progress here and it should be fun to see if I can do it. Good luck to me!

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